Gift for Auckland Poet on Janet Frame’s Birthday (28 August)
2021 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award for Poetry goes to Siobhan Harvey
The Janet Frame Literary Trust is delighted to announce the recipient of the 2021 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award for Poetry. Auckland poet Siobhan Harvey will receive $5,000 from a fund set up by Janet Frame for the purpose of encouraging New Zealand authors “of poetry and imaginative prose”. The biennial award is timed to commemorate Janet Frame’s birth date on the 28th of August. Janet Frame was famously saved from an imminent lobotomy when a doctor noticed that she had won a literary prize. She received many grants and prizes over her long career and wanted to give back to her fellow writers.
Siobhan Harvey is originally from England and made New Zealand her home 20 years ago. She is the author of eight books of poetry and non-fiction. Her latest volume of poetry and creative non-fiction, ‘Ghosts’ (Otago University Press 2021), explores themes of migration, homelessness and family trauma. The UK Poetry Archive describes her poetry as “that of a quester – a voyager — meditating on separation and discovery, on time lost and time regained, on the tug of distant familial connections, and the new global connectivity which means never being out-of-touch.” Harvey is a lecturer in creative writing at the Auckland University of Technology and her work is published widely in New Zealand and international journals and anthologies.
Siobhan Harvey said that she was humbled “to be honoured in a legacy left by New Zealand’s foremost author” as well as finding herself the recipient of an award given previously to writers whose work she admires, such as Peter Olds, Tusiata Avia, David Eggleton, Catherine Chidgey and Alison Wong.
“In this fraught time of a global pandemic and in an era in which the financial earnings of writers in New Zealand are below the minimumwage, this bequest allows me to fund writing time I would not have been able to afford otherwise.”
Siobhan Harvey is the author of eight books, including Ghosts (Otago University Press, 2021) and 2013 Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award-winning Cloudboy (OUP, 2014). She received the 2020 NZSA Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship, and won the 2020 Robert Burns Poetry Award and the 2019 Kathleen Grattan Award for a Sequence of Poems. Her work appears in recent anthologies: Arcadian Rustbelt: Poets Emerging 1980–-1995 (University of Liverpool Press, 2021), Feminist Divine: Voices of Power and Invisibility (Cyren US, 2019) and, translated into Italian, in Alessandra Bava (ed.), HerKind: Anthology of Contemporary New Zealand Poets (Editione Ensemble, 2021).
my current POETRY reading pile selected from my current POETRY tower
Initially I invited three poets, whose poetry I love, to do a reading for a small Phantom National Poetry Day celebration on Poetry Shelf. But when I felt we’d be in an extended lockdown, and our fabulous physical Poetry Day events would need virtual reinvention, I made a larger gathering. I have so loved listening to the readings as they arrived. Sitting at the kitchen table, transported so beautifully.
I am sad that a magnificent list of national events can’t take place physically, but I am glad I can tune into things today I wouldn’t have seen or heard. Exciting! Check out virtual Phantom National Poetry Day eventshere.
To celebrate poetry in Aotearoa, I have a few more copies of Wild Honey: Reading NZ Women’s Poetry to give away (only in NZ). Leave a comment here, on FB or Twitter or email me.
I also want to make up a few poetry-book care packages. If you are in need of a poetry boost let me know (only in NZ). I won’t be able to send anything until Auckland moves to Level 3.
Help our publishers and booksellers by ordering a poetry book online today!
NZ POETRY BOX Phantom National Poetry Day celebration:If you have children who like writing poems you might like to check out my suite of children’s authors reading a poem and my galaxy of hidden poem challenges. I will post poems and have books to give away. Here And my National Poetry Day guide for children.
Grateful thanks to all the poets who recorded a poem or two.
If I have made mistakes, I would be grateful if let me know, as I seem to be a continued state of drift and daze.
HAPPY POETRY DAY – Keep safe, be kind on yourself as well as others.
The readings
Sue Wootton reads three poems
Photo credit: Doug Lilly
Sue Wootton reads ‘Tauranga’, ‘The Knitters’ and ”Poem on the shortest day’ (all appeared in takahē101)
Anuja Mitra reads two poems
Anuja Mitra reads two poems: ‘To You, in Late July’ (published in the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2020) and ‘Home, Seen From a Distance’ (published in Signals)
Louise Wallace
Photo credit: Grant Maiden
Louise Wallace reads ‘The Happy Poem’ (Enough, Victoria University Press, 2013)
Chris Tse
Chris Tse reads ‘Red—Life & Courage’
Modi Deng
Photo credit: Mikayla Bollen
Modi Deng reads ‘tell me’ and ‘tomorrow will be the same but not as this is’ (AUPNew Poets 8, Auckland University Press, forthcoming)
Lily Holloway
Photo credit: Angela Zhang
Lily Holloway reads ‘hopscotch’ and ‘stocktaking during venlafaxine discontinuation’ (AUP NEW Poets 8, Auckland University Press, forthcoming) and ‘Imagined heterosexuality with you, my ex who won’t stop calling’ (Cordite Poetry Review: GAME, August 2021)
Tate Fountain
Photo credit: Andi Crown
Tate Fountain reads ‘Red’, Yellow’ and ‘Blue’ from ‘COLOUR THEORY (PRIMARY)’ (Min-a-rets Annexe), and ‘Iterations’ (Starling 11).
Emma Neale
Photo credit: Caroline Davies
Emma Neale reads ‘Withdrawn’ (To the Occupant, Otago University Press, 2019)
The poets
Modi Deng is a postgraduate candidate in piano performance at the Royal Academy of Music on scholarship. Currently based in London, Modi received a MMus (First Class Hons, Marsden research scholarship) and a BA from Auckland University. Her first chapbook-length collection of poetry will be part of AUP New Poets 8. She cares deeply about literature (especially poetry, diaspora), music, psychology, and her family.
Tate Fountain is a writer, performer, and graduate teaching assistant based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She has been published in Agenda, the Min-a-rets Annexe, and others, and her short fiction was highly commended in the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition (2020). She is now on the Editorial Committee for Starling, which means Francis and Louise have a reprieve from having to format her poetry for the web.
Lily Holloway is a queer nacho-enthusiast. She is forthcoming in AUP New Poets 8 and you can find her work here. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @milfs4minecraft.
Anuja Mitra lives in Auckland. Her writing has appeared in Cordite, Takahe, Mayhem, Starling, Signals, Sweet Mammalian, Poetry Shelf and The Three Lamps, as well as the recently-launched A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand. She writes theatre and poetry reviews for Theatre Scenes and the New Zealand Poetry Society. She enjoys eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and petting her small colony of cats, both of which she is probably doing to procrastinate writing.
Emma Neale lives in Otepoti/Dunedin, where she works as an editor and writer. She has published 6 novels and 6 collections of poetry and her first book of short fiction, The Pink Jumpsuit, is due out from Quentin Wilson Publishing this year.
Chris Tse is the author of two poetry collections published by Auckland University Press – How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (winner of Best First Book of Poetry at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards) and HE’S SO MASC – and is co-editor of the forthcoming Out Here: An Anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ Writers From Aotearoa.
Louise Wallace is the author of three collections of poetry published by Victoria University Press, most recently Bad Things. She is the founder and editor of Starling and is currently working on a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Otago. She is spending the level 4 lockdown at home with her partner and young son on the Otago Peninsula.
Sue Wootton’s novel Strip (Mākaro Press) was longlisted for the 2017 Ockham NZ Book Awards, and her most recent poetry collection, The Yield (OUP), was a finalist in these awards in 2018. She was the 2008 Robert Burns Fellow, and held the 2018/19 NZSA Beatson Fellowship. She was awarded the 2020 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship. Sue lives in Ōtepoti-Dunedin where she is the recently-appointed Publisher at Otago University Press.
The poems in Sue’s recording were published in takahē 101. ‘Tauranga’ is after ‘Watching for dolphins’ by David Constantine. ‘The knitters’ is for Dunedin-based artist Michele Beevors, creator of a series of life-sized, anatomically-accurate knitted sculptures of animals, especially extinct and threatened species. ‘Poem on the shortest day’ was written in June 2020, and responds to events of that year, especially the pandemic lockdowns and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.
Massey University Press is thrilled to announce that you can now read all the winning entries from the 2021 Poetry New Zealand Student Poetry Competition here.
The first prize winners will be published in Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2022, releasing in March next year. Congratulations again to all the winners of the competition, and thank you to everyone who entered.
This year’s winners are:
YEAR 11:
FIRST: Jade Wilson ‘Café Vienna’: closely observed, drawing resonance from sensory detail, sustained & involving voice that creates intimacy.
SECOND: Jade Wilson ‘Balancing Shadows’: sustained image-focus & emotional resonance, & again showcased an arresting reflective voice.
THIRD: Kaia Nahi ‘The Hypnosis of the Flame’: gets a hypnotic & energetic effect from personification, & shows a real awareness of the compelling power of word choice.
COMMENDED: Frauke Haase ‘Little Stars’; Mandrie du Preez ‘untitled’; Mia Fraser ‘White Snow, White Wind, White Hair’.
YEAR 12:
FIRST EQUAL: Ocean Jade ‘Route Back Home’: some stunning intensity & rhythmic movement, vivid focus on evocative imagery, conveying a strong sense of voice, energy & story; AND Sarah Kate Simons ‘Gossip’: sustained use of dynamic form & imaginative focus to colourful & original narrative effect.
SECOND: Sarah Kate Simons ‘In Yourself’: power in sound-play & execution, exploring language & meaning with vibrant intelligence & sensory force.
THIRD EQUAL: Shima Jack ‘Develop & Structure’: extremely inventive form, used to potent ends to generate intensity & impact; AND Sarah Kate Simons ‘Hospital’: arresting connections in imagery, mature & graceful voice.
FIRST: Caitlin Jenkins ‘South’: electric attitude, rhythmically voiced, vividly detailed, with a tough tone of pride in its streets & its identity.
SECOND: Penelope Scarborough ‘Today I (my sister’s cigarettes)’: brave compelling piece that uses sustained structure to zero in on a story with sharp emotional impact, containing disturbing encounter through concrete detail; real intensity & heart in this story.
THIRD EQUAL: Amelia Kirkness ‘Unmaking my New Boots’: powerful metaphor at its core, observed with striking sensory skill & political awareness; AND Lucy Barge ‘Ever after’ & ‘Staining the Silence’: both lean honed & vibrant poems, making striking edgy use of form to generate intensity.
COMMENDED: Judy Fong ‘Steps’; Amelia Kirkness ‘Evil Make Believe’; Freya Turnbull ‘apology to the butterfly that lived’; John Pain Yesterday ‘When I stopped’; Grace Fakahau ‘4 tha culture’.
Ode to South Auckland wins National Schools Poetry Award 2021
Caitlin Jenkins, a Year 13 student from Papatoetoe High School in Auckland, has won the 2021 International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) National Schools Poetry Award with a poem that celebrates the rich cultural histories of South Auckland.
The announcement comes as Aotearoa New Zealand celebrates National Poetry Day.
Judge Tayi Tibble says the winning poem ‘South’ “cleverly explores the relationship between people and place, tangata and whenua”. She adds, “The poem reminded me of a chant, or a prayer. It hit a perfect chord of being both staunch and critical but also forgiving and hopeful.”
The 2021 National Schools Poetry Award is organised by Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s IIML with the support of Creative New Zealand, and sponsorship and promotional support from Wonderlab.
Caitlin Jenkins, who is of Tongan (Village Fatai), Niuean (Village Toi) and NZ European descent, receives a prize of $500 and her school library receives a book grant of $500. She also receives a package of literary prizes provided by Read NZ Te Pou Muramura, Victoria University Press, Sport, Landfall and the New Zealand Society of Authors. As part of the prize, Caitlin will attend a poetry masterclass with Tayi Tibble, along with the nine other poets shortlisted for their entries. The current COVID alert level has pressed pause on the masterclass, which will be held online if necessary.
Caitlin says, “I’m feeling very honoured and grateful to receive this award. ‘South’ is a poem dedicated to my Pasifika and Māori communities of South Auckland. We have forever been taught to accept the mould the rest of New Zealand has put us in, but this poem is proof that only we can shape us, that we can reverse the damage and grow from it something beautiful. Please take this poem and welcome it into you, and when you enter our streets, remember us by it.”
There were more than 200 entries this year from senior high school students. Many of the poems that impressed the judge wrestled with multiculturalism in New Zealand. “I am blown away and completely inspired by how freaking cool teenagers are these days,” says Ms Tibble.
“They’re whip smart and passionate. They’re generous, thoughtful, keen, and respectful. They are funny and warm. What always impresses me the most, like, literally makes my jaw hit the floor, is their socio-political awareness and responsibility. They care about the world around them and the people that society affects, targets, isolates, and disenfranchises.”
Ms. Chris Price, senior lecturer at the IIML says “The winning and shortlisted poems make it clear that the future of poetry, and of Aotearoa itself, is in very good hands.”
The other nine finalists are: Ruby Buffett-Bray (St Dominic’s College, Auckland), Grace Fakahau (Palmerston North Girls’ High School), Janet Guo (Hillcrest High School, Hamilton), Jackson McCarthy (St Peter’s College, Auckland) Darcy Monteath (Logan Park High School, Dunedin), Ella Paterson (Tauranga Girls’ College), Penelope Scarborough, (Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu), Holly Willis (Wellington Girls’ College), and Angelina Zhou Narayan (Burnside High School, Christchurch).
All finalists will join Caitlin at the poetry masterclass, as well as receiving prizes from Read NZ Te Pou Muramura and Sport, and $100 cash.
The new bilingual journal, Mātātuhi Taranaki, features poetry, micro-fiction, stories, songs, essays with writers that are both familiar and unfamiliar to me. What an exciting initiative this.
‘Huirangi’s urging was for unification between the peoples of Taranaki, recognising and celebrating our commonalities and differences. Paddy recognised in Trevor the skills to support the revitalisation of Te Reo Māori (done so capably by others) by providing a forum for Māori, Pākehā and Tauiwi to express a uniquely Taranaki identity in Māori, English (and other languages by negotiation). The bumper first edition is a proof of concept. In true Taranaki gate style, it might not be the flashiest website at this stage, but it provides a showcase of the enormous literary talent in Taranaki.’
The next issue is: Vol.1, No.2, (December 2021) and submissions are now OPEN. Submission close: 30 September 2021, or when complete, whichever is the sooner.
Join our online Showcase featuring leading contemporary poets from Australia and New Zealand. Includes Hinemoana Baker, Nina Mingya Powles and Tusiata Avia from NZ.
Featuring readings by some of Australia’s and Aotearoa’s leading contemporary poets. Presented in partnership with Phantom National Poetry Day and Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
We may not be able to gather in the same room, but we can certainly still soak our tympanic membranes in all sorts of lovely! Bring yourself, your poems, and your ears along to our lockdown open mic this Friday night (National Poetry Day). Reading is, as ever, optional, but if you’d like to read, please flick a message through to us via our Facebook page before Friday & we will put you on the list. There will also be the opportunity for impromptu reading. This event is open to everyone from every place, of every age and experience level, etc. & the rest. See you in our lovely little poetry bubble shortly!
UPDATE: Obviously this event won’t be happening as we had planned on Saturday due to the current Covid restrictions. However, we will be holding an online event via Zoom instead!
Our readers will be: Tarns Hood Lîm Kado Jordan Hamel Rebecca Mary Freya Daly Sadgrove and Jackson Nieuwland
Stay tuned for the Zoom link on Saturday afternoon! *********
Six uncontainable poets burst off the page and out of the bookshop, taking to the street outside Food Court Books. Their mission: to make themselves heard with the help of a megaphone. They will barrage the audience and passing traffic with loud, brash, and emotional poetry. No one is safe when poets roam the streets.Presented as part of PHANTOM National Poetry Day 2021.
